The Board remands the claim for service connection for right foot surgery as secondary to a service-connected condition, due to an alleged duty-to-assist error by the AOJ.
The deciding factor: Remand is necessary to obtain pertinent VA medical records and properly adjudicate the matter in the first instance.
- Claimed conditions
- right foot surgery
- How they argued it
- Secondary to another service-connected condition
- Exposure basis
- None
- Rating assigned
- None in this decision
- Decision date
- May 6, 2025
- Citation
- A25041238
Veterans Law Judge
Decisions by this judge: 1,797 · Granted: 20% (granted or partly granted, in the vetted decisions on this site)
Judge attribution: 2025 complete; earlier years partial.
This is a plain-language summary generated by AI from a public Board of Veterans’ Appeals decision. It can contain errors — always verify against the original. Look up the original decision on VA.gov (opens in a new tab) using citation A25041238.
What this means for you
A remand is not a loss. The Board sent the case back for more development — often a new exam or missing records — before making a final decision. Many remands later end in a grant, and the decision spells out exactly what the Board wanted to see.
What you can do next
Related decisions
Other Board decisions on a similar condition or argued the same way.
- Remanded (sent back)
The Board has decided to remand the case due to the need for additional development, including obtaining medical records from service and scheduling a VA examination.
- Denied
The Veteran's appeal is denied as the evidence does not support an extension of a temporary total rating beyond April 30, 2009.
- Denied
The Board denied the veteran's claim for an increased disability rating for her service-connected bilateral degenerative joint disease of both feet, finding that the evidence did not support a higher evaluation than the current 20 percent assigned.
- Granted
The Board has determined that the Veteran's headaches are at least as likely as not caused by his service-connected traumatic brain injury, and thus grants service connection for this condition.
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